Thread by @RogerPielkeJr

A short 🧵 on my Senate testimony earlier this week
With key highlights

You can find the full text here:
banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…

My focus is on the provision of robust science advice to policy makers on climate & evidence that scientific integrity has suffered in key ways

But first, lest there be any confusion. . .

1⃣ Those who are familiar with my views will know the below

2⃣ Scientific integrity would seem to a a topic that both Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on

The US government generally (but definitely not always!) does an excellent job in soliciting and securing robust expert advice

Climate should be no different

3⃣ Anyone following me knows climate science currently has some serious issues with the ubiquity of out-of-date scenarios

This is not simply an academic issue

Out-of-date scenarios can be found in scenarios used in important policy setting (eg, in regulation, by central banks)

Policymakers & the public are routinely provided misinformation by NOAA (one of my favorite science agencies!) w/ the count of so-called "billion dollar disasters"

The dataset is poor economics & inappropriate for measuring climate trends

It's clickbait, apparently irresistible

In reality the US & world economies hv become more resilient & less vulnerable to extremes

eg, flood damage as a % of US GDP has dropped by 70% since 1940 - this is not a small decrease

Normalized hurricane & tornadoes losses below also

It is good news & we want it to continue

Can you believe that the 2017 and 2018 US National Climate Assessment did not include a graph showing a timeseries of US hurricane landfalls?

Hurricanes by far have the greatest economic damage of extreme weather

And yet the NCA didn't share with policy makers a timeseries?
🤷‍♂️

4⃣ Here are two examples where flawed science advice has real-world policy consequences: central bank climate stress testing & estimates of the "social cost of carbon" for regulatory policies

Both based on wildly out-of-date scenarios which project implausible futures (below)

And rather than use existing science advisory mechanisms on climate, Congress is considering creating more such mechanisms, which would risk a confusing landscape of committees and create more opportunities for "policy based evidence" by mandating the substance of its advice

5⃣ Congress has the ability to require that the US NCA up its game & provide robust science advice (and just just that which advances the administration's policy agenda)

I recommend three actions to improve the role of the NCA in supporting Congress and the federal agencies

The bottom line?

At present there are troubling signs that Congress and the federal agencies are not receiving the high-quality advice necessary to inform decision making on climate mitigation and adaptation policies

Climate is too important for bad advice

/END